


When to Run

by goodnicepeople



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, a progression of a relationship, i tagged this for violence in case but there's nothing particularly graphic, unhealthy dynamics from both parties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 14:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8582734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnicepeople/pseuds/goodnicepeople
Summary: Taako had seen something easy in Sazed. Something that reminded him an awful lot of himself. How strangely good it felt, Taako thought, not to seize it and wring it out and exploit it for all its worth, though it would be easy to do. And he also thinks, later on that night in the quiet, hearing Sazed pacing around the caravan keeping sentinel as Taako rested, what would he himself have been like if anyone else had ever done the same for him?





	

"How'd you -- how do you do it?"

Taako briefly glances up and grins toothily before ducking back to continue packing up his tools. 

"A bit of magic and a lot of practice, my man," he replies airily; the same phrase he offers up to any and all fans who approach after shows. Nowadays, the crowds are meager but surprisingly invested. Eager, even.

"Nah, it's just that - " the man says, and his voice suddenly tapers off, tight and high, like the words were being shook out of him. When Taako really looks at him this time the man's eyes are closed, wringing his big, big hands nervously into the fabric of his dirty pants.

"When you do the show," he continues, with apparent effort, "I know there are other people there. It just. It feels like you're talking right to me."

Taako halts. Wipes his hands on his apron and stands to his fullest height - which is not much in comparison to this hulking figure before him - clearly sizable but seemingly hunched up in his blushing, tentative embarrassment. 

"You've seen the show before?"

The man nods, his lips pursed tight.

"Where?"

"Here, both times," he answers. Then, with a short, nervous huff of breath. "And out near the Dalelands. Waterdeep. Silverymoon." 

"A  _fan_ ," Taako drawls teasingly, but appraisingly, too. And the man blushes deeper. Nods again.

Taako finishes wrapping up his knives. Lingers, for a moment.

"Maybe I am," Taako says. "Maybe it's been for you all along."

Taako watches the way the man's throat bobs as he swallows thickly. He thinks, good. He thinks, I knew it. He thinks, I could get used to that.

\--------

The two elves cackle, watching Sazed pack up the little he owns. A floor below, there's the chatter and thrum of the tavern as it bustles on. It's so strange, he thinks. Life, proceeding as usual, when his is suddenly so different.

"I just don't -- I don't believe anyone in the world hired a no-brained fuck like you."

Sazed doesn't respond, shoving a pair of battered boots into the bottom of his leather sack pointedly.

"It's not a real job," the other man goads. "It's that -- you know the guy Sazed keeps sneaking out to stalk? With the fucking magic show? It's him."

"It isn't a magic show," Sazed snaps under his breath, walking to his trunk and taking out a pile of rumpled clothes and old books. "You wouldn't understand."

One of the elves snatches up a book from out of Sazed's arms.

"Sazed," he says, almost like he's leveling with him, "this is a -- " he stops, with a strangulated little guffaw. "This is a book for children!"  

The other elf takes it and flips through it, snickering.

"I'm learning," Sazed counters.

"Oghma almighty," he sighs. "Sazed. You can't read. You can  _barely_  cook. You're lucky you're big enough to throw violent drunkards out or youd've been fired years ago."

"There's no way this guy's hiring you," the second elf agrees. "He's gonna take your shit and leave you for dead." 

And cruel as they are, they're not off the mark, Sazed thinks. With the way people laugh at him when he tries to speak up. How they call him a no-brained dolt. How it's true that people don't seem to like him, historically. Left behind by his father. Mistreated in the lavish homes he tended to for no pay, content to return to a flimsy bed in some attic or cellar because he knew what it meant to be without one. He brushes absently at a long divot in his skin above his collarbone; a deep, puckered burn mark from when his last employer held a hot iron against him when Sazed was caught trying to pilfer food from the kitchen. 

But in Taako he sees something he's almost too frightened to put words to. Some semblance of kindness. The notion they may be compatriots. Not equals, maybe, but Sazed could hardly comprehend being on the same level as him, anyway. Someone who'd looked him over and said, "Sazed, I believe there's use for you yet" and, in saying that, had given Sazed an inkling of purpose.

Dinner bell rings, and the two elves sling their aprons around their waists and call for Sazed to follow, tossing his simple children's book at him.

"Good for nothin' -- I oughta kick yer teeth in," a drunken bard had slurred, spitting at Sazed's feet as he hauled him out of the inn and onto the street.

"You think you can?" Sazed chuckled, where he usually remained completely silent. He jostled the bard in his grip once, hard. "Try it."

The bard stumbled off, appropriately shaken. And for Taako, Sazed thinks, he'd stave off a thousand of 'em.

\-----------

Perhaps Taako had seen something desperate and easy in Sazed. He figures it's easy to sniff out if you've been that way yourself. The old words are bitter in his mouth -  _please, please, let me stay, I'll do anything you want_  - words Taako has promised he'll never say again. Not to anyone.

Maybe his intentions weren't the kindest, letting Sazed tag along. Seeing how badly Sazed wanted to please, and how nice it would feel to be the one being pleased, after a lifetime of the opposite. How he had to promise so little to receive so much. Every bit of kindness Taako extended, returned tenfold. Sazed always up late guarding the caravan and still, somehow, sprung awake before dawn. Cleaning up. Arranging flyers. Standing off to the side as Taako performed, beaming like he'd never seen something so spectacular.

"Listen, you either want it or you don't, but I'm about to close shop, so it's time to pay up."

"This isn't gonna do," Sazed says to the shopkeep, drawing up his shoulders and standing at his fullest height. His huge arms loose, heavy at his sides. "This futchel won't match the splinter bar we've got. And I think you know that, sir, and wanna hurry us outta here before we catch on. Is that right, sir? You looking to swindle my employer out of something?" 

"Quick thinking, big boy," Taako says, barely masking excitement. He too turns to the shopkeep, curling his fingers around Sazed's elbow. "You heard the man. Give him the good stuff."

Taako cooks for the two of them later that night. Sazed tries to watch him cook whenever he can, when he isn't pulling their caravan along or scrubbing grease or keeping an eye on their surroundings. Eating leftovers from the show is a delight, of course, but there's something that feels supremely intimate, special, about something Taako makes just for them.

"That was good, you know," Taako says offhandedly, ladling some thick stew into a bowl and handing it to Sazed. "What you did back there."

Sazed blushes.

"It was nothing, sir," he deflects. "I just know people can be," he pauses, looking for a diplomatic word, "they can be real greedy." 

"Oh, I know that," Taako deflects. "And seriously, my dude, don't call me 'sir.' It makes me sound old."

Sazed nods and takes a large bite of food to hide his embarrassment.

"I was just trying to say," Taako continues. "You know. Thanks. You're a smart cookie."

"I, ah," Sazed hedges uncomfortably. "I'm sorry. I gotta tell you. I - I'm not smart. I don't want to lie to you - let you think I'm something I'm not, since you're my boss and all. I don't - I think - I'm sorry. Sir. Taako. I don't even know how to read."

Taako puts down his bowl. Blows a short, wet sound out of his mouth with his tongue. Tuts sort of like he's in serious thought.

"Huh," Taako says finally. "I guess book club is off the table then."

And Taako grins, and then he laughs. Claps Sazed on the shoulder and Sazed laughs, too. 

Taako had seen something easy in him. Something that reminded him an awful lot of himself. How strangely good it felt, Taako thought, not to seize it and wring it out and exploit it for all its worth, though it would be easy to do. And he also thinks, later on that night in the quiet, hearing Sazed pacing around the caravan keeping sentinel as Taako rested, what would he himself have been like if anyone else had ever done the same for him?

\----------

Taako awakes to rustling and a sharp, muffled sound. 

He sits up, shaking out of his meditation and listens. There's a dull thud and then the unmistakable hiss of voices. He throws his blanket around his shoulders and clambers out of the back of his caravan.

On the ground is the unmistakable, massive figure of Sazed, on his knees and seemingly fixated by something beneath him.

"Did you take anything?"

It's then that Taako notices another figure - just the legs - protruding from underneath Sazed. Sazed seems to slam whoever is beneath him against the ground, which earns him another pained grunt.

"No! F-fuck -- get off me!"

"Sazed," Taako interjects quickly. "What the - "

"This bastard was trying to steal from you," Sazed says, not once looking up from the man beneath him. Indeed, there's a sack off to the side, torn open and spilling its contents onto the wet ground, but Taako recognizes nothing among the items as their own.

"I didn't take anything!" the man protests. 

"You would've. You would've, if I hadn't seen you."

Sazed's voice is sharp and assured in a way Taako hasn't heard before. He isn't quite sure how to feel. Appreciative, he supposes, as a person who has woken up to their caravan robbed. As a person who's been held down by ruffians and robbed or beaten or coerced.

Sazed wrestles a dagger out of the thief's hand and growls.

"You would've gladly slit his throat, huh?"

"Fuck you," the man spits. Sazed pulls back and punches him hard across the face.

"Sazed, Sazed," Taako says, moving closer. "It's -- you got him. You stopped him."

"You would've killed him," Sazed continues, like he hadn't heard Taako at all. He takes the dagger and stabs it into the damp sod next to the man's ear. "You would've just killed him, if you had to."

Sazed's hands clamp around the man's throat.

"Apologize to him."

His mouth opens, and no sound comes out.

"Sazed," Taako says again, more sharply. "Stop it. Don't kill him."

There's a moment of odd stillness, like time had slowed. Even the struggling man beneath Sazed seems to stop wheezing and kicking. Then, Sazed exhales, his hands lifting away from the man beneath him. He sits up on his knees, letting the man scramble out from under him, hacking and shaking, and tear off unarmed into the night.

"You caught him," Taako says again, laying a hand on Sazed's shoulder. "It's all good, my man. You did good."

Sazed does not look up. His hands open and close in his lap like he's still grasping at something. His large, large hands. This good, frightening man, Taako thinks, a little cowed and a little flattered. He helps him to his feet. Sazed pulls the caravan through the night, refusing to rest.

\------------

It isn't much longer, after that.

Sazed tries to hide how much he wants him, but Sazed is bad at hiding, and Taako thrills in the warmth of his affection and adoration.

And, he supposes more reluctantly, Taako wants him too. In a genuine way. In a way that isn't at all like sidling up to the largest man at the bar and toying with him in exchange for a safe place to stay for the night, quickly evading him come morning. In fact, Taako thinks a lot about mornings with Sazed. They never involve him running away.

Taako knocks on the ceiling of the caravan; his signal for Sazed to stop pulling. He feels it come to a halt.

Taako steps out into the dusk, coming around to the front of the wagon. Sazed turns and smiles at him, framed by the last vestiges of an orange sunset. He wipes some sweat from his brow with those large, large hands.

"Everything alright? We're close. Only maybe a few miles out."

"Take a break, big boy," Taako beckons. Taako watches Sazed swallow heavily.

"We're so close, though," Sazed answers limply. Perhaps hoping not to hope. A contrite, nervous look Taako recognizes and pities.

"Hey," Taako says, stepping closer. His voice is oddly low and assured. "I'm asking you. Take a break."

Sazed reaches up to push the hair out of Taako's face but before he can, Taako catches his hand in the air. Grips his wrist and squeezes. Turns his head slowly and kisses the palm of Sazed's hand.

Sazed heaves a sound then almost like a sob. Like some dam has burst. Something irreparable. Something fantastic. 

"C'mon," Taako beckons. And Sazed follows happily.

\------------

"And before the inn, where I was working when you met me, it was a manor in the town over. They called me Swine. Made me sleep out in the barn with the animals."

Taako draws lazy circles on Sazed's chest with his finger.

"People are just awful," Taako sighs into the crook of Sazed's neck.

"Not you," Sazed says, tightening an arm around Taako. "Not you."

"Eh, you don't know that," Taako laughs, but Sazed repeats it, a little more insistently, and presses a reverent kiss to the top of his head.

\-------------

And things are good. The show only grows in success and the crowds in size. They are welcomed into towns as guests, sleeping in fancy inns or with rich patrons in their manors.  

Taako spreads his attention expertly. Shaking the right hands. Charming the right people. Punctuating the right sentences with a wink. And Sazed is there behind as support. To shake that hand a little harder, a little more insistently, if Taako doesn't get what he wants. To back up that wink with a glare, if his meaning isn't received.

And Taako thanks him for it, falls into bed beside him smelling like clove or flour or garlic and sighing, "they loved me, Sazed. Did you see all of them them out there? They love me."

And Sazed thinks,  _of course they do._

And Sazed also thinks,  _and I would know. I did first._

Taako gets swept up in the magic of it. Magic, he reasons, he spun himself, with his own talent and hard work. It's an enticing life. An earned one, after so much else.

A life Sazed fears he is not a part of.

\------------

"You -- you're not serious. We talked about this  _yesterday_. We can't do this every night, Sazed."

Sazed wrings his hands.

"You're the one who told me that I need to ask for what I want."

Taako rubs his temples.

"Yeah," he relents. "Yeah, I know I said that. But I already gave you the answer. It's about the  _brand_ , Sazed. It's about keeping a good thing going."

Sazed says the words he's been practicing. Words he says aloud while Taako is onstage, waiting for this moment.

"Then I'll leave. If you don't want me."

Taako sits up straight. Narrows his eyes.

"You know I want you."

"You don't act like it. So I'll leave."

"Sazed, I'm not gonna beg you," Taako answers curtly. "I've done enough of that. I don't beg anymore."

Sazed relents, despite himself.

"I'm begging  _you,_ " he insists.

"Well, it's ugly," Taako snaps. He stands and begins to tie his apron. "I don't like it. Not a good look on you, babe."

He's tread this path before. Giving in, for the sake of comfort. Falling back, because what lay ahead was frightening and lonely and dangerous.

He has two thoughts then, watching Sazed deflate and wring his big, big hands behind his back.

The first is,  _why would you? Why would you hand over a part of this wonderful, hard-earned thing that is, perhaps, the first happy thing in your life?_

The second is,  _it isn't though. He was the first happy thing in your life._

Ultimately it isn't selfish, Taako thinks. It's self-preservation. So with a pang of regret, he shoos Sazed out.

"I need to get into the zone for tonight. It's a big crowd. I can't give less than my best."

He looks at himself in the mirror. Practices a show-stopping grin. His whole life has been leading up to this. And he cannot regret his whole life.

\-------------

There are two ways this plays out, Sazed outlines for himself, thumbing the top of the bottle.

When he'd gone to the apothecary and asked for arsenic, the woman behind the counter smiled a wan, knowing smile.

"Poison, hm? It's not for yourself, is it?"

Sazed had shaken his head.

"Self defense," he lied, though not entirely. She handed over another, smaller bottle.

"An antidote, then," she explained. "In case things go south. Stops it in its tracks. Enough for just one."

Sazed squeezed the bottle tight in his hand.

"Just in case," she had said.

So now there are two ways this plays out.

First, Taako dies. Taako dies. That's what happens here, is Sazed separates from Taako in the only way that will be truly permanent; will actually work. Taako asks for no help and dies, and with him goes all his hubris and pompousness and kindness and love and all the things that make Sazed want him so, so terribly.  He thuds to his knees in front of an adoring crowd, and Taako dies.

Or, Taako doesn't. Taako takes his poison and is scared. Taako is helpless and he calls out for Sazed. And Sazed is there in the wings, just like always. Just like Taako knows he'll be. And Sazed saves him, and Taako clings to him all the tighter and says something like, "there you are big boy, there you are, you saved me" and that's that. They can't be parted ever again. Bound together forever, with so much to be owed to one another.

There are, it seems, three ways this plays out.

"I don't know how it happened," Taako says numbly, for the thousandth time that night. Never once considering it wasn't his fault.

Sazed may not be smart, but he knows well enough when to run.


End file.
